There are a plethora of smartwatches and other wearables available today, but when it comes to smartwatches, one device has far surpassed all the others. Canalys, an independent analyst company, released its smartwatch report for 2015, and let’s just say the Apple Watch kicked some serious butt. However, it has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to lead the entire wearables category.
Updated on 02-25-16 by Robert Nazarian: Added in results from International Data Corporation (IDC)
According to Canalys, Apple sold over 12 million Apple Watches during 2015. That’s well above the seven million estimate that was reported in November 2015. The firm says that Apple “cashed in on holiday sales” with an additional five million units sold.
International Data Corporation (IDC) also analyzed data from last year and came up with similar results. Its Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker report estimates Apple moved 11.6 million watches in 2015, which is broadly on par with Canalys.
The total of 12 million units represents two-thirds of all smartwatch shipments. If that’s not impressive enough, consider the fact that other manufacturers had a four-month head start, since the Apple Watch didn’t debut until April 2015.
The Gear S2 performed better than previous Gear smartwatches to help Samsung take second place, followed by Pebble in third, and Huawei in fourth. Huawei is the only one of the four companies with an Android Wear smartwatch, so that doesn’t bode well for Google. Canalys didn’t release actual numbers for each of these companies, but IDC’s report estimates that Samsung sold 3.1 million wearables during 2015. The majority of that number probably came from smartwatches.
This news comes at the heels of a report from Gartner Research, which estimates that 50 million smartwatches will be sold this year. This means that Apple could sell as many as 33 million smartwatches. on the admittedly uncertain assumption that the company continues to occupy two-thirds of total sales.
The Apple Watch performed amazingly, but it’s still well behind Fitbit. Both Canalys and IDC released numbers for basic bands, which consist primarily of fitness trackers like the Fitbit. Sales of these wearables exceeded 37 million units during 2015, and showed Fitbit comfortably in the lead with 21 million units. That’s almost double the Apple Watch. Xiaomi was also able to impress, coming in second place after shipping an Apple Watch-like 12 million Mi Bands.
Article originally published on February 5, 2016
